Call it "Helpless President Lit." A recent Ezra Klein column is the latest in a growing genre which celebrates our Commander-in-Chief, not as a powerful leader, but as a perennial victim. It portrays him as someone who's powerless over other people's actions, and sometimes even over his own. In this genre the President is forever at the whim of forces beyond his control, even when he has a supermajority in the Senate and a strong majority in the House.
Helpless President Lit is a form of melodrama. It's like an old-fashioned cliffhanger with the President replacing Little Nell, that noble young creature who's forever being tied to a train track or suspended over a gorge by some dastardly villain. Except the country's about to get hurt, not him - and nobody's coming to the rescue.
There'd be no point discussing this backward-looking and speculative genre if it didn't encourage the President and his supporters to continue on such a destructive course of action. I agree with Klein and other critics who say we focus too much attention on the Presidency. But this discussion affects our thinking and behavior at all levels of political engagement.
The only thing more destructive than expecting too much out of our leaders - or ourselves - is expecting too little.
The Rules of the Genre
There are strict conventions in "Helpless President Lit." Its authors must characterize the President's progressive critics as naive. They must say his detractors are expecting more than any President can deliver. The President must be portrayed as a victim of circumstance, powerless in the face of Republican intransigence.
This calls for the frequent use of code words like "realistic," designed to persuade the reader that its plausible to describe the most powerful executive in the world as a helpless creature of our political climate, rather than someone with the platform and the power to reshape it.
Forget all that talk about a "post-imperial Presidency." To them it's a post-Presidential Presidency. Can you imagine George W. Bush's supporters talking this way?
Once the President's helplessness has been attested to, attention is then directed toward the his dissatisfied progressive constituents. The tone that's employed may vary from witheringly critical to mildly and politely condescending.
With each new work of "weak President lit," straw men tremble in fear. But real criticisms, most of which are clear-eyed and practical - and yes, realistic - go unheard. And a Democratic President is encouraged by his enablers to continue down a destructive - and self-destructive - path.
"... shadows on our eyes leave us helpless, helpless, helpless."
Klein's piece is called "What Could Obama Have Done?" The answer seems to be nothing - except possibly to be a little less awesome.
Klein writes:
"I've never been able to come up with a realistic scenario in which a lot more got done, the economy is in much better shape, and the president is dramatically more popular ..."Something important's being overlooked here. Obama got what he requested - roughly $770 billion - and said he was satisfied with it. That left many voters with no choice but to blame him for the outcome."Indeed, if you had taken me aside in 2008 and sketched out the first three years of Obama's presidency, I would have thought you were being overoptimistic: an $800 billion stimulus package -- recall that people were only talking in the $200-$300 billion range back then -- followed by near-universal health-care reform, followed by financial regulation ... (don't ask don't tell, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, etc) ... There was no way. And yet all that did get done."
"But the administration hasn't able to get unemployment under control -- perhaps it couldn't have gotten unemployment under control -- and so all of that has not been nearly enough."
Realistic Action
Klein employs another "helpless President" convention when he challenges his readers to rebut him if they dare - but only, he cautions, "if you have a realistic vision for what an actual president operating in the American political system could have done differently."
Ezra, you're on. Here are five realistic things the President could have - and should have - done:
One: Genuinely help struggling homeowners, using funds that were approved and allocated, rather than torturing them with the HAMP "extend and pretend" program which primarily benefited big banks.
Two: Direct the Attorney General to aggressively pursue criminal indictments of executives at major financial institutions, rather than agreeing to 'slap-on-the-wrist' SEC settlements or pretending that minor, separate investigations are part of a broader global mortgage program. (The Attorney General could have started with AIG, moved on to JPMorgan Chase, and then turned to the drug-laundering operations within Wells Fargo Bank. More info on bank criminality here.)
Three: Push for a public option in that health bill -- the one that Ezra describes as achieving "near universal coverage," but which really forces many Americans to buy inadequate private health insurance at exorbitant prices. (When everybody else was telling us this bill would eventually be wildly popular, some of us predicting its political impact much more accurately.)
Four: Press the Senate for a much stronger financial reform bill, instead of consistently trying to water it down through the efforts of Tim Geithner and other Administration officials. We saw a number of Republicans like Tom Coburn and Chuck Grassley cross the aisle and vote for robust reforms, but only if they were brought to an open vote on the Senate floor.
Five: Request a stimulus that was big enough to work, when it had the political capital to do it. Smart economists in the Administration knew that at least $1.2 trillion was needed. WOnly about $500 billion of his $770 billion initial package was in the form of much-needed spending. The rest consisted of tax cuts, some of which could have had stimulus effect and much of which didn't.
Most importantly, the President could have used his "bully pulpit" to advocate, advocate, advocate -- for jobs, for investment, for regulation, and for the role of government in American life. Instead he has preferred to adopt the destructive "above left and right" posture that's undermined his party and weakened him in the eyes of the public.
Sins of Commission
But the most destructive aspects of this Presidency haven't been the things he hasn't done. They've been the things he has done, Here's a sampler:
And that doesn't include his continuation of the Bush anti-civil liberties initiatives, the targeting of whistleblowers, and the aggressive pursuit of independent news sources.
It's Not About Him
This is the point in the conversation where somebody says "Why do you hate the President?" The answer is I don't hate him. We could speculate endlessly about why he's made the choices he's made. But, whatever his motivations, he's made a lot of mistakes and squandered a lot of opportunities. That's hurt the country, and it's also hurt his electoral prospects.
If anybody thinks otherwise, they're not being "realistic." They're not reading the polls - not his approval ratings, and not the avalanche of polling which shows that austerity economics is as unpopular with the public (including most Republicans) as it is with smart economists.
Right Action
This is also the moment when somebody usually says "You may be right, but this isn't the time to criticize Obama. Do you want President Bachmann to run this country?"
This is exactly the time to criticize the President, because it's not too late for him to take some aggressive steps to repair some of the damage. In fact, here are some actions he can take right now:
What the President's defenders don't understand is that he's being criticized for what he does and doesn't do, not for failing to get better results. The Bhagavad-Gita says "a wise person is judged by her actions, not by the fruits of her actions." That's the standard by which the President - or any of us - should be judged.
Co-Presidential No More
I'll say this for "Helpless President Lit." At least it's not "What Would Hillary Have Done? Lit," a genre which is not only speculative but pointless. (I reject the choice anyway, even hypothetically. The right question is, "What would someone who was not a misguided 'Third Way' Democrat have done?" The Barack/Hillary exercise can never answer that question.)
Obama's defenders need to stop being enablers and let him know that this kind of behavior can't go on - for his sake as well as theirs. The "helpless President" movement must be "codependent no more."
The moral? We need to be more a little more self-reliant and a little less dependent on charismatic leaders. A good way to start is by asking White House for more action to fix our broken economy.
(More samples can be found here. Klein's piece is one of the least objectionable of the lot.)
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
"With each new work of "weak President lit," straw men tremble in fear. But real criticisms, most of which are clear-eyed and practical - and yes, realistic - go unheard. And a Democratic President is encouraged by his enablers to continue down a destructive - and self-destructive - path."
I made that EXACT argument about Cesca years ago, when it was clear to me that he would be devoid of shame regarding his relentless Obama cheerleading. Again - this should be mandatory reading for the likes of Cesca and ALL Obama cheerleaders.
Well done RJ. Great piece, loaded with facts.
There was and is no "plan B" to address Republican refusal to go along with anything. Like a community organizer whose power cannot exceed the collective power of his disenfranchised constituents, and for whom even the tiniest baby step forward--typically a seat at the table, with no promise that anything those constituents say will be taken seriously--represents a victory, Obama treats the most insignificant "concession" as a victory. He completely ignores the constitutional power of his office to circumvent and/or overcome even the staunchest opposition. He rarely uses the bully pulpit to promote the agenda on which he campaigned; he took the 14th amendment option off the table early on in the debt ceiling fiasco; he refused to prosecute Bushies for torture and other war crimes; he rarely uses executive orders (and rarely used recess appointments before Republicans started keeping the Senate in session during breaks--and has not gotten together with Harry Reid to figure out how to thwart that strategy).
Everything he does is premised on the myth that even as president, he has no more power than a community organizer. He has shown the Republicans that he is weak, and will capitulate rather than fight. While this strategy works for community organizers trying to secure fundamental due process for totally disempowered constituents, it reflects a betrayal of those who elected him to push the agenda on which he campaigned--not to simply cave at the first sign of opposition.
What is the point of Obama being the president if the best you can say is he is at the mercy of others rather than leading others? The alternative is that he is complicit.
Either way, it demonstrates weakness or deception and perhaps evidence that he is not a good candidate to lead the Democrats.
However, I think he loses it with this line "The right question is, "What would someone who was not a misguided 'Third Way' Democrat have done?""
The false premise is layered in this single line. The first is that these Democrats are something other than the hirelings of corporate America. They're not looking for a "third way". They're seeking a way to deliver all to Wall Street while making sure THEY get the credit rather than the GOP.
The second false premise is that there is some OTHER kind of "Democrat" at this late date. You MIGHT have been able to make that argument in 1992 but today the notion that somewhere out on the plains there are herds of free roaming "Real Democrats" anxiously awaiting a shot at national power is as much a fairy tale (and as much a treasured belief) as "My Little Pony" stories.
When Obama took office we were losing over 700,000 jobs PER MONTH! We have now had 17 consecutive months of private sector jobs growth.
He passed the health care reform bill that every president for decades has stated as a need. This remarkable achievement puts regulations on health insurers to prevent drops in coverage when it is most needed and denial based on pre-existing conditions. This bill will help insure millions who are currently without insurance. This bill will also reduce the deficit.
He passed credit card reform to protect consumers from predatory practices.
He passed financial reform to regulation derivatives and put Elizabeth Warren in charge of setting up the CFPB which will offer many consumer protections on mortgages and similar contracts.
He ended the Iraq combat operations.
He made a shift in US foreign policy to more of a worldwide support role. This shift is potentially the biggest foreign policy change since WWII and already is showing that it can potentially save us money and lives while still being active on the world stage.
You should vote to re-elect President Obama for what he has accomplished, not for what Republicans have prevented.
That said, the problem is the Republicans. Their obstructionism has set the rest of America against itself by creating an illusion of scarcity, a make-believe zero sum game. While 80% of the productivity growth of the last 30 years has moved to the top 0.5 percent the rest scuffle for crumbs. It may be tricky to deliver the message (and not lose all of one's rich backers) but the issue is class warfare--from the top down. If Warren Buffet can denounce the coddling of the super-rich the president can do the same.
At the heart of presidential paralysis is fear of acknowledging the role of wealth and class in propelling our race towards third world status. A handful of reactionary billionaires have financed a slow motion coup d'etat that will lead to a new Gilded Age of wealth concentration for the few and serfdom for the remaining 99 percent. Failing to challenge this phenomenon is failure to address the root causes of Republican strategy. They--and their phony Tea Party wing--are a front for an unenlightened plutocracy. Make no mistake, they are winning.
The next black president won't need to jump through the same hoops. He won't need to prove he can run with the big dogs.
Those people prevaricating about Obama's being a political realist, and compromising with his political opponents, are just plain silly.
I don't judge Obama by getting SOMETHING done and calling it a win, usually on Republican terms, which is I think their real motive. They support Republican policies.
I judge him by getting his priorities implemented, you know the priorities in the party platform and advocated by him in his election campaign.
By that standard he's a great big failure.
Regardless of what those silly people with a media platform and hidden agenda say.
If you don't send your specifics to The Hill how do the representatives & their constituents decide what to support or oppose? Without legislation going public on The Hill + WH, there is no way to use a bully pulpit to use public opinion & pressure to aid the process.
But, especially on his health insurance reform, it was the same old GWB "trust me."
I'm all ears.
1) An "Obama Democrat" is a "Clinton Democrat".
2) There aint no other kind of Democrat in any numbers.
The GOP and Democratic party are the two faces of the Corporate Power Party. You get to choose which face sells you down the river. If that's not enough choice for you I suggest you find and support a third party.
A) MUCH too late
B) Impossible
Obama never intended to be the kind of president who would actually try to do what the people voting for him wanted. Look at his actions from the day after the 2008 election. He immediately created his cabinet and transition team out of Clinton Deregulators and Wall Street Flunkies. You could no more force Obama to the Left than you could have George W. Bush or Rick Perry.
To the 5 Action Suggestions:
1. More government involvement in private lives (especially involving $$) would not be tolerated. Be realistic. We live in an extremist political climate.
2. Agreed.
3. Fail. Big Fail. Again, refer to our climate.
4. It was watered down b/c that's all the senate could handle. Bunch of pu**ies.
5. See 1 and 4.
About the sins committed: They are all true. There is no president that is all bad and not good, or vice versa. But these are definitely his flaws, but he's still the favorite of my lifetime and probably always will be.
As for any questions about liking Obama or not based on actions: please realize that there actually ARE more economists that agree with him than don't. He might not be able to always act on his wishes, but his wishes are generally more agreeable.There is a difference.
On your "Right Action" suggestion - Why SHOULDN"T we raise the eligibility age for Medicare or Social Security? We're living older, why not start giving those benefits at an older age accordingly? I see nothing wrong with this. And every little bit helps.
Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin explained how modern-day presidents don't really have an effective bully pulpit.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct/21/historian-din-outdoing-presidential-messages
As I stated above, the President's defenders can be just as guilty of hyperbole as his critics.
I will read the DKG cite. Thanks.